


Cold to the Core

by velithya



Series: Tropes: A Final Fantasy XIII Remix [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Post-Game, Tropes are fun!, WIP Amnesty, this will never be finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 06:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velithya/pseuds/velithya
Summary: Fang has been unconscious in the snow for far too long.





	Cold to the Core

**Author's Note:**

> ~WIP Amnesty~
> 
> Happy New Year!   
> This was going to be my "huddling for warmth" trope part of my trope remix series.

**Cold to the Core**

Fang has been unconscious in the snow for _far_ too long. Her eyes are glassy, her lips are blue and she's not even shaking, just taking long, slow blinks that look like they're all she can manage.

Lightning sinks her blade into the snowdrift and drops to her knees. "Fang? Can you hear me?"

Fang blinks slowly. "Li-" she says, and her throat clicks as she swallows.

Lightning's already patting her down. There's blood trickling from a gash at her hairline, and her sari is soaked through, skin cold and damp, but nothing appears to be broken.

"Okay," she says. "Let's get you up."

She flips her gunblade closed and stows it in its holster. It's dirty still, but she can't waste the time to clean it now, not when Fang is like this. 

She bends down next to Fang again. The snow is cold on her bare arm as she shoves it under Fang's shoulders.

"Li-" Fang says again, and then "lan-"

Lightning levers her into a sitting position, Fang's head tilting back against her elbow limply.

" _Lan_ -" she says again, more insistently. Her eyes are mostly closed, and her fingers twitch against Lightning's stomach. "Lan-" 

It's the finger twitch that prompts her. "Oh, your _lance_ ," she says, and Fang's head shifts against her arm. 

It's unlike Fang to have let go of her lance during combat -- but then again she doesn't normally take three blizzagas at once without being braced for it, either. Lightning glances around, but it's not immediately visible. 

"Hang on," she says, and eases Fang back onto the snow. The lance is practically seven feet long and mostly bright red; it should be relatively easy to find. It can't have been thrown much further than Fang herself was.

There's a long depression in the next snow bank over, about ten feet away, and sure enough there's Fang's lance, sunk in deep. It's already covered in frost, and the chill when she touches it even seeps through her gloves. Lightning shifts it from hand to hand as she jogs back over to Fang, stabbing it into the snow for a moment. 

"Okay," she says and gets Fang back into a sitting position. "Up we get."

Fang blinks at her, and Lightning gets her other hand around her waist and hauls her to her feet. She can't possibly stand by herself, but Lightning only needs her upright for the time it takes to lift one of her arms and crouch down. Fang slumps over her shoulders, and Lightning hooks her elbow around Fang's thigh and pushes to her feet. She's heavier than she looks; Lightning never _forgets_ , precisely, because she's seen Fang in combat, seen behind her casual facade -- but Fang is five foot nine of solid muscle, and at times like these it's a stark reminder.

"I'm going to carry you back to the ship," Lightning says, transferring her grip on Fang's arm to her other hand and collecting the lance from the snow. "You just sit tight, okay?"

Fang doesn't make any verbal response, and Lightning starts walking, using the lance for balance when she wobbles under Fang's weight. Fang would normally be talking, discussing the fight, mocking Lightning's technique, and this silence is unnatural. It's making Lightning nervous, more than she normally would be about Fang if she was injured.

She regrets, now, the extra distance they'd covered because they thought they'd seen oretoise tracks; the distance nothing to them when fit, but after a triple blizzaga with no warning--

She'd half expected Fang to shake it off, make some comment about how it was refreshing or just like a cold shower or something, _anything_ \-- and instead she'd seen Fang go flying, tumbling into the show like a ragdoll.

It had been -- and she can be honest with herself in this, if nowhere else -- terrifying, to see her fall. Fang is one of Lightning's constants; at her shoulder in battle and at her side out of it; at her house more often than not; and always _there_ in a way Lightning can't really explain. She has a way of filling a room, making Lightning feel present and grounded, and she's always, _always_ , in control.

"You still with me?" Lightning asks. She can't hurry, not with the snow she's kicking through and the distance she has to cover; not with Fang balanced across her shoulders. Slow and steady is the way to get them there safely, but it's time she's not sure Fang can afford, not with how she's looking; not with the long minutes she lay there in the snow while Lightning fought off their ambushers.

Fang's fingers twitch against Lightning's stomach, but she still doesn't say anything. Lightning should be grateful that she's able to respond at all, but she's too concerned about the rest of the situation to really feel it. She's in soldier mode, on a mission: get Fang to the ship, get Fang warm. She'll let her emotions out when she has the luxury to deal with them, and not before.

Her shirt across her shoulders and back is starting to soak through with water from Fang's clothes. She's still not shivering, and Lightning resists the urge to try and run through the slush. If she hits a patch of ice and goes down, it's going to be really difficult to get back up again. 

It seems to take forever, and much longer than Lightning's comfortable with, but she finally sees the ship in the distance. It's small, just one of the tiny two-man skiffs that were salvaged from Cocoon, but it was large enough for the two of them and powerful enough to be able to lift an oretoise, if they'd managed to find one. 

All Lightning cares about now is whether it's still stocked with a first aid kit. All of their clothes are damp or soaked, and they're going to need a blanket. 

She stabs the lance in the snow again and punches in the door release. It groans open, and as soon as there's enough room for them she grabs the lance and steps through the gap, turning a little sideways to try and avoid bashing Fang's head in on the edge.

She goes to one knee, lifting Fang's arm and sliding her off her shoulders. She crumples onto the floor, but at least her eyes slide open when Lightning stands. 

"Just going to grab the blanket," Lightning says, and steps carefully over Fang's head into the cockpit. She stashes the lance and grabs the kit from under the seat, pulling it open. The emergency blanket is there, thank Etro, and she grabs the pack and steps back over Fang into the tiny cargo area. 

First things first -- secure the area. She punches in the door closure, and once the door has groaned its way closed, the secure lock override. No-one is getting in here now unless she wants them to. Next -- warmth.

She rips the pack open and shakes out the blanket, spreading it across the remaining floor.

"Time to get warm," Lightning says, and pulls Fang's boots off one at a time. The leather is clammy against her fingers, and Fang's toes are looking a little blue. She chafes them between her hands for a moment, then moves up. Fang's belt slides stiffly through the buckle, and Lightning pauses for a moment, faced with the length of her sari. Fang makes it look so easy in the morning, whenever they've bunked together -- she starts with seven metres of silk, and a few graceful turns later, she's all tucked away, a delicate fall of silk from shoulder and waist. 

Lightning has no idea how to do this properly. On the other hand, it's all just wrapped and tucked, so she grabs a handful of silk and _pulls_. She has to feed silk under Fang twice, but eventually the sari is in a soaked puddle near the door and Fang is in her singlet and shorts. 

Lightning knows they have to share body heat; what she doesn't know is how naked they need to be for that to work properly.

"Sorry," she apologises in advance, and pulls at Fang's waistband. Turns out she's wearing pants under the shorts, so Lightning tosses the shorts on top of the sari. The singlet is too soaked for her to keep it on either, so Lightning pulls it off awkwardly, manhandling Fang's arms around. She's wearing a bra underneath, thank Etro, and Lightning tosses the singlet away and rolls her onto the blanket.

"Be there in a sec," she says to Fang's slow blink, and stands to strip herself. She leaves her clothes in a slightly less sodden pile next to the sari, and lowers herself onto the blanket in her bra and underpants.

"Okay," she says, crowding in close and flipping the end of the blanket over them both. "How is this going to work."

Fang is _freezing_. Lightning pulls her over nearly on top of her, tucking her fingers against her chest, and trapping her toes between her calves. Her nose presses into Lightning's neck, and she can feel the brush of her eyelashes against the side of her jaw every time she blinks.

"Okay, warm up," she says, and rubs her hands up and down Fang's back. "Please, warm up."

There's nothing to do but wait it out. Lightning breathes steadily, in and out, and rubs warmth into Fang's back, and Fang blinks into her neck. If Fang wasn't so _cold_ , and Lightning wasn't doing her best not to freak out, this would be nice, holding Fang close. Her emotions have to come later, though -- Fang needs to get warm first. Fang needs to be _okay_.

Fang's toes twitch, and gradually the shivers start. Fang's breath starts to hitch, stuttering exhales against her neck, and then her whole body is shaking, finally. _Finally_. Lightning breathes out a silent sigh of relief, and then makes a frantic grab for the blanket with her free hand as one of Fang's shivers gets a little violent. 

"It's okay," Lightning says; she can't see Fang's face, but her breathing is still too fast. She might be distressed. "You're getting warm again, it's okay."

Fang's next exhale is a little stronger, a little more deliberate. "Know that," she slurs. "Not 'n _idiot_."

Lightning squeezes her eyes shut against what are definitely not tears, and swallows hard. "Of course you're not," she says, trying to keep her voice light. Despite her best efforts, it wobbles just a little. "You just thought the snow was a great place for a nap."

"Shut it," Fang slurs, and burrows against Lightning like she can get any closer. "Cold."

Lightning tightens her arms around Fang's back, and tries to _will_ heat into her. "I know," she says. "Just hang on."

She'll get Fang warm, or at least warm _enough_ , then she'll strap her into the copilot's seat and fly them back to Oerba, get her checked out. She had blood at her hairline; she could have a concussion. At the least, she should spend the night in the little infirmary under observation.

"What's th' noise?" Fang slurs some time later, and now that she's said something, Lightning can hear it too, the incremental increase previously unnoticed. It's the wind, whistling past the little ship. It shouldn't rock them -- the ship is too secured on its skids for that -- but it does signal an unexpected change in the weather.

Lightning cranes her head up, trying to see out the cockpit, but from where they're lying on the floor, all she can see is a mass of white.

"It's the wind," Lightning says absently, trying to make sense of what she's seeing; from this angle she should be looking at the sky.

"Already had blizzard today," Fang slurs, and _oh_ , their luck cannot possibly be this shitty. Lightning can only see white because they're in the middle of a freaking _snow storm_.

So much for overnight observation in the infirmary.

"Looks like we're going to have another one," Lightning says, and shifts on the floor. The blanket is pretty thin, and her tailbone is going numb. "We won't be able to fly in this, so you might as well try and get some sleep."

"'kay," Fang slurs, and wriggles closer. Her shivers have mostly eased, and she's starting to feel a little warmer. Both good signs, but Lightning knows better than to stop sharing body heat yet. Fang still has a way to go.

As close as they are, she'll feel it if Fang has a major change in her status. She might as well take the chance to sleep too, if she can; she's tired herself, and she'll have to be alert later, when the weather's cleared and it's time to fly back to Oerba.

It's been a long time since she slept with someone curled into her like this though; her and Serah had both been teenagers, overcome with grief at their mother's death and needing comfort any way they could. They'd fallen asleep every night for a month curled around each other, pillow splotchy with tears.

Fang's breathing slowly evens out against her neck, back rising and falling gently with each breath. Lightning relaxes her arms, letting her breathing fall into rhythm with Fang. She tilts her head against Fang's, and closes her eyes for a moment.


End file.
